


This life's too good to last

by Ineffablemurderhusbands



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fights, Sad, Sad Ending, two doctors meet but the circunstances are not ideal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25621588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ineffablemurderhusbands/pseuds/Ineffablemurderhusbands
Summary: Time is tearing itself apart and the Doctor finds out it's because her past self is trying to hold on to the time he has with his wife.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, Twelfth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 4
Kudos: 88





	This life's too good to last

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I wrote this listening to Blackout by Muse and I can't go own without you by Kaleo, so you can listen to them as you read this. I hope you like it. Please leave kudos and comments if you do.

It had started gradually. First it was little things, like frequent deja-vus around the world. Then people started to lose track of time, blinking and suddenly realizing hours had passed until it escalated to days, weeks, years, decades… News around the world about people disappearing, about seeing animals that should be extinct, about watching people disappear right in front of their eyes. The world was a chaos and the Doctor was stumped about the reason why. 

“Time is tearing itself apart.” She announced, entering the TARDIS after they dealt with dinosaurs wrecking havoc in the middle of downtown London. 

“Why?” Ryan asks. Although it had been pretty fun to deal with the dinosaurs and he had felt like he was in the middle of Jurassic Park, it had also been quite scary. 

“Beats me.” The Doctor made her way to the console room as she plugged her sonic screwdriver in the panel to look at the readings she had done of the prehistoric beings. 

“Well, Doc, I’m sure you’re gonna figure it out.” Graham said, having total faith in her. 

“All that I know is that there’s something quite powerful messing with the streams of time and that is extremely dangerous because it can erase all of our history. “Time has stopped working once and it was utter chaos.” She said. 

“It has?” Yaz asked alarmed. 

“Yes, but no one remembers it, I made sure of it.” She says with a somber and kind of pained look in her eyes. “Everything that happened was in a sort of parallel universe where time stopped.” 

“And how did you manage to make time restart?” Graham asked, intrigued. 

“That’s a long story.” She said with a little sad smile as she typed away on the console table. “Ok, I tracked down where the signal is coming from and-” She stopped talking altogether as she read something on the screen but as her companions walked closer to investigate everything was written in that circular language that they now knew was Gallifreyen, the Doctor’s mother language. 

“What is it, Doctor?” Yaz asks. 

“I’ll drop you off at home.” The Doctor said with a sudden serious expression on her face. 

“We’re coming with you.” Yaz said impetuously. 

“I said I’m dropping you off at home.” The Doctor said as she pushed a few levers and pressed buttons on the console room. “And that’s final.”   
“What is it, Doc?” Graham asked before Yaz could say anything else. 

“I know the reason why time is tearing itself apart.” She said somberly as she put the TARDIS in motion. “And it’s something that I need to deal with on my own.” 

“You shouldn’t have to.” Yaz said softly but the Doctor shook her head. 

“I have to and I’m not changing my mind.” She started at Yaz to show her that she was serious. “Go home Yaz.” Then she looked at Ryan and at Graham. “I’ll come back for you.” She looked at Yaz again. “For all of you, but I need to deal with this first. It’s my sin to beare. Not yours.” 

“Doctor…” Yaz stepped forward but Graham held her arm, causing her to stop in her tracks and look back at him. 

“Let her, she knows what she’s doing.” He said and Yaz nodded. She gave the Doctor a last look before she walked out of the TARDIS doors. “I hope you can deal with whatever you’re going to face, Doc.” Graham patted her shoulder lightly and made his way out of the TARDIS as well. 

“Please come back.” Ryan said gently before going after his grandpa. Soon the Tardis was empty again. Just the Doctor and her old girl. 

The Doctor sighs into the empty space left by her friends before she walks back to the console table. “Ok, old girl. Let’s see if we can go talk some sense into that old fool's head.” 

As the Doctor reached her destination, she realized that everything was exactly like she remembered. The dusk of dawn was streaming out of the windows and there was a smell of tea in the air. The house was quiet but there was a clock moving somewhere. She could hear the tik, tik, tik of it. That tik used to drive her crazy was she used to be a him. She spent hours awake as she heard to that tik. The remainder that she didn't have much time left. That even if she had a thousand years it wouldn't be enough. That clock ticking drove her mad. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she found the older version of herself sitting on the couch in the living room as he stared at that clock. The floor creaked when she stepped on it, alerting him of her presence. He raised his eyes, his eyebrows creasing when he looked at her. But then his eyes focused on the TARDIS behind her and he sighed. 

“House call, Doctor?” He said. His voice was rough from not using it which told her that he was probably there without saying a word for a while. 

“You left me no option, old man.” She sighed as she finally walked into the living room. 

“I guess you’re here to swear me off of it.” He sighed as well and she sat down next to him on the couch, making sure that she was far away enough from him to not disrupt even more the time stream. 

“That I am.” She said. 

“And why is that?” He looked at her. He was angry all of a sudden and she found herself brewing a bit of anger deep down as well. Huh, maybe she wasn’t that different from her old self after all. 

“You know why.” She said pointedly. “Time is tearing itself apart right now from where I come from. It will stay that way until you take these notions away from your mind and stop what you’re doing.” 

“Aren’t we allowed to be selfish?” He asked, getting up from the couch as he buried his hands in his grey and fluffy hair. She missed that hair. It was beautiful. “Don't you miss her?” His voice faltered. 

“Every single day.” She answered truthfully. “But you know we can’t do this.” 

“It’s almost dawn.” He said, ignoring her as he looked out of the window. “You know what’ll happen when dawn comes.”

“Of course I know!” She exclaimed, getting up from the couch as well. She felt that anger rising to the surface, no longer buried deep inside of her. “I lived it! Every time that I close my eyes I remember how she looked when the dawn came. I remember how she smiled at me and how her golden hair glinted in the morning light. I remember her tears when she said goodbye, how I held her close and hard willing her to stay. How I cried when she was gone. I remember it all because I lived through it and it won't be natural if we don’t live it because you’re using the TARDIS to delay the time!” 

“How can you stand there and say these things to me when you know how it feels?!” He exclaimed. She could see that his eyes are red rimmed. “When you know that we’ll be sending her to her death? How can you not care?” 

“DON’T TELL ME THAT I DON’T CARE.” She walked right into him, getting into his face on her tiptoes so she could stare into his eyes. “If I could I would give all my lives to get her back, including yours. We aren’t gods, no matter what we tell yourselves. We can’t mess with time and you know this. Not even for her.” 

All fight left his body and his shoulders sagged. Suddenly he just looked very tired and very old. “We should.” 

She also let the fight leave her and she exhaled, feeling tears brimming into her eyes. “I know. I wish we could but we can’t.”

“I know.” He looked at her. “I just wanted to know what it feels like to be selfish. Just this once.” 

She didn’t have anything to say to that so she just nodded, telling him without words that she understood. “Do me a favor. Cherish your time with her. Don’t look for subterfuges. Just… Love her. She deserves to feel loved. And we both know that we love her, even if we never said it.” 

He looks down, ashamed for a moment and then he looks at her again. He nods. “Good.” She says, turning around to walk away. She didn’t dare spend another minute in that house afraid that if she did, she would be the one using the TARDIS to slow down the time. 

“Wait.” He said and she turned around to look at him. “Promise me that you won’t stop looking for ways to take her out of there.” 

She nodded. “I promise.”

“Good.” He nodded, picking up the ticking clock from the coffee table. “Take the damn clock, I can’t stand to hear it anymore.”

She picked up the clock from his hands and nodded, walking away without looking back. 

When she came back to her time, everything was in its place again. Except for her hearts. She had left it in that house in Darillium as River slept.


End file.
